Top crypto stories of week 23, 2024
Mon 3 to Sun 9 June 2024
The 20 top stories on Kiwi News from Mon 3 to Sun 9 June 2024, ranked by upvotes, comments and clicks, with 28 comments in total. Most-shared sources: x.com.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- How Many Users Does Farcaster Actually Have? (thedefiant.io)
- Vitalik on “this cycle’s celebrity experimentation” (x.com)
Vitalik Buterin expresses unhappiness with the current cycle of celebrity experimentation, arguing that financialization is acceptable as a means to a worthy end but objectionable as the final product. He contrasts this with Ashton and Mila's Stoner Cats, which he calls more honorable than anything from the 2024 celebrity memecoin era because it funded an actual show. He closes by asking how things can be pushed in a better direction.
- The End of Software (docs.google.com)
Software companies will be displaced the way media companies were, because LLMs will drive the cost of creating software toward zero, as the internet did for content. The article argues that this will produce a Cambrian explosion of software that no longer has to make money, and that new platforms controlling distribution will then take the value. It gives Vogue being replaced by 10,000 influencers and Salesforce being replaced by a constellation of dynamic tools as examples, and it says that majoring in computer science today will be like majoring in journalism in the late 1990s.
- Nook (FC client) is shutting down (warpcast.com)
- Bonding Curve Research Group Library 📚 (bonding-curve-research-group.gitbook.io)
The Bonding Curve Research Group (BCRG) describes itself as an independent, decentralized collective of scholars, engineers, and researchers focused on the study, development, and practical implementation of bonding curves. Its team draws on systems engineering, mathematical modeling, economics, data and computer science, design, and community building. According to the page, the group aims to make bonding curves easier to understand and implement by turning these mathematical concepts into reliable tooling for projects and developers designing token economies.
- Local-first software: You own your data, in spite of the cloud (inkandswitch.com)
- Program or be programmed (blog.teji.io)
- Challenges with BYOA and social networks (dwr.email)
Discussion of bring-your-own-algorithm (BYOA) for social networks raises several challenges, according to the article. It notes that world-class consumer apps in 2024 use machine learning based feeds, which consumers prefer by time spent, and that building a good ML feed requires significant resources. A feed marketplace would likely need a backend where developers upload models that clients run, raising privacy concerns. A developer building a Farcaster client, Kartik, reported that feed performance was much harder than expected and that running the backend cost about $2k per month for a few hundred active users.
- Research Hub (muur.notion.site)
- Tor & IPFS are opposites. (rebelnet.me)
- Rollup.wtf (rollup.wtf)
- Farcaster faucet bot (x.com)
- Introduction - SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: The Decade Ahead (situational-awareness.ai)
Leopold Aschenbrenner argues that the AGI race has begun and that a few hundred people, mostly in San Francisco and the AI labs, can see what is coming. He projects that AI will reach roughly preschooler-to-high-schooler capability jumps by 2027 and that superintelligence could follow by the end of the decade. The essay says big business is pouring trillions of dollars into GPUs, datacenters and power, which could grow US electricity production by tens of percent. It also warns that AI labs treat security as an afterthought, that controlling superintelligent systems is unsolved, and that a government AGI project is likely by 2027 or 2028.
- Making A Case For Memecoins. (ifeoluwani.substack.com)
Memecoins have become the dominant speculation vehicle in crypto, and the author argues they can be a useful onboarding route if communities and builders push them toward utility and culture rather than pure speculation. The article contends memes are tokens with no utility focus, so most are likely to fall to zero once attention fades, making them a casino on-chain. It cites HIGHER, a Base meme whose community has aligned it with projects matching its optimistic ethos, and Drakula, a video-sharing app that integrated the Base meme DEGEN to help drive early user growth. It concludes that crypto must also deliver product experiences better than Web2 to retain users.
- OpenRank: Decentralized Reputation Protocol (openrank.com)
OpenRank describes itself as a verifiable ranking and reputation infrastructure that uses social graph algorithms such as EigenTrust to reduce spam and Sybils without centralized gatekeeping or censorship. The project says its composable onchain social graphs can deliver relevant, contextual recommendations to users and communities. Its roadmap states that it will first launch reputation systems with design partners, then launch an open, permissionless and verifiable protocol.
- Arweave acquires crypto social media app Odysee (dlnews.com)
Forward Research has acquired Odysee, a crypto-based YouTube competitor with about seven million users, to bring those users to the Arweave blockchain. Sam Williams, founder of Arweave and CEO of Forward Research, told DL News that the firm stepped in to save Odysee from going offline after US regulators forced the closure of LBRY, which had almost killed Odysee. Williams declined to disclose the acquisition terms. He described Arweave's "permaweb," which stores uploaded content permanently, as a natural fit for Odysee.
- Interactive Ethereum Roadmap (ethroadmap.com)
This page ranks offshore online sportsbooks for US bettors and states that they are licensed in places such as Curaçao, Panama, or Costa Rica rather than by US state regulators, so they lack state oversight and statutory fund protections. Lucky Rebel is ranked first, with a 125% match up to $1,250 plus a 50 free bet, while Bovada offers 50% up to $250 and BetOnline offers $250 in free bets. Headline bonus figures are not cash until rollover requirements, often 5x-10x, minimum odds, and time limits are met. The rankings are described as editorial judgments, not guarantees.
- Programmable social (x.com)
- Robinhood to Buy Crypto Exchange Bitstamp in Effort to Expand Outside the U.S. (coindesk.com)
Robinhood has agreed to buy U.K.-based crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200 million in cash, as it seeks to expand its crypto presence globally and attract institutional clients. The company announced the deal on Tuesday, and it is expected to close in the first half of 2025, according to the press release. Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto, said the acquisition helps the company expand its footprint outside the U.S. Bitstamp, founded in 2011, offers spot trading of over 85 cryptocurrencies, and its CEO JB Graftieaux said its leadership team will remain in place after the sale.
- friend tech DAU down to 177 users (x.com)